By Omar Bah
Dawda Fatty, a former orderly to one of the commissioners at the commission of inquiry that looked into the financial dealings of former President Yahya Jammeh has called on the government to settle his outstanding monthly salary.
He said prior to submitting the commission’s report to the president, the government owed about 21commission staff members two months outstanding salaries.
“Three months after submitting the report, we made a follow-up to ensure that we are paid but we were unsuccessful. We went to meet the Justice minister who promised to facilitate the payments. A few days before Ramadan, they paid our salaries for February but until now we have not received the March salary,” he said.
He said they went to see the solicitor general who informed them that he was not aware that they were not paid and promised do all he could to get them paid in the soonest time.
“The solicitor general informed us that he had instructed the accountant to pay us as soon as possible. When we returned there, we met the assistant accountant who told us their system was down for over a week and they could not have access to the Internet,” he said.
“But recently, some of my colleagues visited the parliament to make inquiries, and they were told the auditors refused to sign the disbursement of our money because our term ended in February and our mandate was not extended,” he explained.
Mr Fatty threatened that if the government fails to pay them, they will stage “a very powerful demonstration against the injustice”.
The commission better known as the Janneh Commission, reportedly spent over D50 million on its activities during its 18-month lifespan. It was headed by three commissioners and at least 58 staff workers.
